A legal challenge to a portion of Proposition B – the minimum wage law approved by voters in November of 2006 – is successful.
Local governments had filed the challenge, asking that police officers, firefighters, and other emergency personnel who do not work standard work hours be excluded from the law. Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan has ruled these employees should be covered under federal employment rules, as they have been for many years.
That pleases Gary Markenson, Executive Director of the Missouri Municipal League, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. Markenson says forcing local governments to pay overtime for emergency personnel could have bankrupted cities and counties and forced layoffs. Unions representing these employees were in accord with the effort to exempt these workers from Prop B.
Download/Listen: Steve Walsh report (:60 MP3)
